[R-G] IRR: The media war against migrants: a new front

[Tim Murphy]

IRR - Institute of Race Relations (UK)

http://www.irr.org.uk/

-----------

21 January 2004

The media war against migrants: a new front

By Arun Kundnani


Newspapers have been scaremongering over Europe's Roma communities, some of
whom will, from May, have the right to migrate to Britain. Are these the
first shots in a press campaign against Blunkett's 'new migrants'?

The  Sun claimed that it would be 'tens of thousands'. The Sunday Times
predicted 100,000. The Express announced that 1.6 million are 'ready to
flood in'. In the newspapers' numbers game, no amount of exaggeration is
excessive - but any amount of immigration is too much.

This time it is the anticipated migration to Britain of Roma (Gypsies) from
countries set to join the European Union on 1 May. From May 2004, all
citizens of Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania,
Malta, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia will enjoy the same freedom of movement
previously granted to citizens of other EU states. They will be allowed to
settle in Britain and work just as, for example, Greeks, Portuguese and
Italians have done for many years. If they are out of work, they will be
able to claim benefits - but only after being in the UK for three months and
passing a 'habitual residence test' to prove permanent settlement.

Denmark, Greece, Ireland, the Netherlands and Sweden have also announced
that they will offer citizens of the new member states the right to work.
France, Germany, Italy and Spain are planning to delay the right for up to
seven years.

It appears that the anti-immigration lobbying group Migration Watch provided
the impetus for this latest salvo. A week ago it published a briefing paper
on the Balkans which attempted to analyse the problems faced by the
countries of south-eastern Europe: Albania, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Croatia,
Kosova, Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Romania and Serbia. Since the
collapse of Communism, the paper suggests, the failure of the EU to
facilitate social and economic development in these countries has led to
large-scale migration to western Europe.

Oddly, Migration Watch decided that this paper should be a 'wake-up call' to
the government, not for its policy on the development of the Balkans region,
but for its policy of granting freedom of movement to the citizens of the
ten new EU members - an entirely different set of countries with
circumstances very different from the Balkan countries.

'Welfare shopping'
A couple of days later, the Sunday Times ran the story, but chose to focus
specifically on an 'influx' of Roma. The newspaper compared the benefits
available to an out of work, two-child family in the Czech Republic (£100
per month) with the benefits available in the UK.

The next day the Sun told its readers that 'tens of thousands of gipsies are
poised to flock to Britain'. A 'special investigation' in Slovakia featured
Ryszard, whose family currently survive by begging. He had earlier lived in
Liverpool, where his children attended school, but the family was deported
last year. Under the heading 'Britain's Our Dream', Ryszard was reported as
saying that he planned to return to Liverpool and hoped to 'get a big house
with nine rooms'. The question of why the family was deported, at some
expense, when they were shortly to be entitled to return to Britain anyway,
was not asked.

No doubt the Sun would have approved of the deportation at the time, arguing
that the family's asylum case was 'bogus' and that the claim that Roma
suffer persecution was false. But now the same newspaper tells its readers
that Roma do indeed face persecution so severe that they are desperate to
escape it and come to Britain. Previously, Roma were demonised as 'illegal
immigrants' abusing the asylum system with false claims. Now that Roma are
about to have the right to come here anyway and, hence, the legality of an
asylum claim is irrelevant, the same newspaper is telling its readers how
awful the situation is for the Roma in Slovakia, detailing the racial
segregation, the extreme poverty and the lack of human rights: all to make
it seem plausible that tens of thousands of Roma are poised for a mass
exodus to the UK. A Sun reader who took all this seriously would have to
believe that the persecution of the Roma only began this week.

'Invasion'
Another day and the Daily Express jumps on the bandwagon, with a prediction
of '1.6 million gipsies ready to flood in' on the front cover. Only in small
print on an inside page is the reader told that 1.6 million is actually the
combined total number of Roma in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and
Slovakia: it is a ridiculous estimate of how many might settle in Britain.

With a heading of 'The Great Invasion 2004, Where The Gipsies Are Coming
From', a map of Europe gives further illustration of the Express's message.
Five red arrows are shown tearing across Europe towards Britain where they
are met by a lone arrow directed back at them, painted with the Union Jack.
The illustration is a parody of the title sequence from the television
programme Dad's Army, reinforcing the suggestion that Britain faces some
kind of foreign occupation. An editorial comment begins by stating that
Gypsies are 'heading to Britain to leech on us' and then apparently espouses
the Gypsies' cause by warning that if they are let in they will become
'figures of hate'. Yet the Express's choice of metaphors - 'flood',
'invasion', 'leech' - does little to mitigate such hatred. If the same
terminlology were used of Jews, wouldn't an editor be forced to resign?

Over-estimate
A more reasonable estimate of the number of migrants from the ten new member
states was given by University College London, in research published last
year, which estimated that the number of people coming to Britain is likely
to be between 5,000 and 13,000 per year (of which Roma would make up an
unspecified percentage). In the past, for example when Greece and Portugal
joined the EU, commentators tended to overestimate the numbers of people
willing to move to wealthier countries, wrongly assuming that human beings
make decisions like economists on the basis of a cost-benefit analysis.
Predictions of an 'influx' of southern Europeans proved mistaken then, and
are likely to be so again in the case of eastern Europeans.

Of course, the situation of the Roma is different, as the wholesale social
persecution they suffer is unique in Europe. But the numbers willing and
able to leave, are still unlikely to make much difference to the total level
of immigration to Britain each year.

Blunkett's new migrants
What underlies this week's stories, though, is not numbers but the prejudice
that Roma will come to Britain to scrounge, beg and steal. Although the new
immigration rules will apply to any citizen of the new EU countries,
newspapers have chosen to focus exclusively on Roma. That no mention is made
of other groups, such as impoverished Polish farmers, who might with equal
reason come to Britain from the new member-states, indicates the racial bias
of this latest press onslaught.

Unsurprisingly, the real issues are obscured in this haze of press
distortion. The government's decsion to permit the free movement of migrant
workers from new EU members is part of a new phase in Britain's immigration
policy - 'managed migration' - in which the government is attempting to
fine-tune immigration rules more closely to the needs of British capitalism.
The French and German governments - with their more regulated labour
markets - see migration from eastern Europe as having only a negative
economic impact. As a result, they have decided against allowing free
movement to their countries by citizens from the new member states, for the
first few years.

But Home secretary David Blunkett believes that countries like Britain with
'flexible' labour markets, where workers have less rights, can benefit
economically from migration, if it is 'carefully managed'. In particular, he
hopes that eastern European workers will do the ultra-low-wage, dirty jobs
that nobody else wants - for example, in London's hotel and catering
sectors. And, assuming they fill these vacancies, he would rather they came
as workers than as asylum seekers.

While, on paper, these workers would be covered by normal employment
legislation, in practice it may prove impossible for them to secure any
rights. A report on migrant workers published by the TUC last year revealed
that workers from existing EU countries, such as Portugual, can end up being
paid below the minimum wage because of exploitation by intermediaries.

These issues are set to rise in importance over the coming years as
Blunkett's 'new migrants' - those coming to work from the expanded EU and
those coming from further afield with work permits - slowly increase in
number. Judging by the coverage this week, we can expect that the right-wing
press will see these new migrants as just another group of foreigners to
demonise - just as asylum seekers have been, and 'new Commonwealth'
immigrants were before that - especially if they include existing figures of
hate, such as Gypsies.

Sunday Times 18 January 2004, Sun 19 January 2004, Daily Express 20 January
2004

--------------

Original URL for this article:

http://www.irr.org.uk/2004/january/ha000008.html

-----------------

The Institute of Race Relations is precluded from expressing a corporate
view: any opinions expressed are therefore those of the authors.

---------------